Middlebury register. (Middlebury, Vt.) 1886-1937, 1887-12-09
Sheep Jnterest.
EvENNESS OF FLEECE.


No sheep owner can stand near the
sheep pens of even one of our county
fairs and not see or hear something new.
In one of these ways, whether by eye or
ear cannot say, the idea of writing this
article was imbibed, and it is given for
what it is worth.
In selecting a ram there is one very
important point that should not be over
looked. While it is doubtless impossible
to produce exactly the same quality of
wool on all parts of a sheep, it is yet pos
sible to produce an evenness of fleece
which is not frequently found in the
flocks of our country. Take the average
clip of wool, and not only the fieeces
themselves will be thrown into different
grades, but the parts of the same fleece,
the shoulders, back, hips and belly will
be separated, each being a distinct grade
of wool.
This state of things gives rise to trouble
all along the route from the shearing ia
BILE to the loom. When the fleece is
thrown on the rolling board the natural
tendency is to roll it with the finest part
of the fleece on the outside; and should
the shoulders happen to be torn there
arises mental conflict as to whether it
is better to tie ragged fleece with the
fine wool on the outside, or to tie a neat
fleece with the coarser wool on the out
side. When the wool is placed away the
trouble continues, and the feeces are
placed with their best face to the buyer.
So far the unevenness of fleece has, per-
haps, been only an annoyance; but now
comes time when it is source of posi-
tive loss. The manufacturer is engaged
in making certain kind of cloth, and he
can make use of but one or perhaps two
grades of wool. 1t is obvious that if he
buys clip of wool containing one or two
grades of coarser wool than he can use he
must buy it at lower figure than he
could afford to pay were the entire clip
of the grades which he demands. Or if
there are finer grades of wool in the clip
than the manufacturer can use, it gener-
ally transpires that the entire clip is sold
at the market price of the grade which
the manufacturer wants, and the wool
grower derives no profit from his finer
grades of wool. The coarser or finer
grades, whichever it may be, are sold to
some one manufacturing goods requiring
those grades Of wool, and in this way the
first manufacturer becomes middle-man
between the wool-grower and the ulti-
mate manufacturer, and his profits
must be deducted from the selling price
of the wool.
Evenness of fleece is then not only a
source of satisfaction in that it allows the
fleece to be tied with any part on the out
side, but it is source of profit as we'll
provided the effort is made to produce an
even fleece having the quality of its finest
part.
While, as we stated, it is probably i'm
possible to produce fleece having but
one grade of wool, yet in selecting ram
it is very important to see that the wool |
is, as nearly as possible, of one grade |
throughout the entire fleece. If the flock |
be already even in fleece, yet of coarse
grade of wool, it would be an open ques-
ton as to whether it would pay to change |
a part of fleece to finer grade, unless
the wool was graded before it was sold {;
but there can be no question about the
profit in bringing the coarser parts up to
the standard Of the finest grade which the |
fleece contains Correspondent of Ma
tional Stockman.